Transcript Slide 1

Qualitative Research 2
Key issues
Learning a little about methods…
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Participant observation
Focus groups
In-depth Interviewing
Projective techniques
1) Participant observation
• “Deep hanging out”
• Type of engagement with the group varies
– Concealed/Open – problems?
• Relation to the group varies
– Observer-as-participant
– Participant-as-observer
• Researcher is the research instrument
• Observation or participant observation?
– Observation – unobtrusive, detached, doesn’t take as long to do the
project, can be done using quantitative approach
– Participant observation – involved, obtrusive (?) lengthy, intensely
qualitative
• Presentation of self
– Way of behaving, dressing, speaking
– Need to keep detached enough, not “go native”
– Egocentrism vs. ethnocentrism
• Field notes, video, as ways of capturing observation
2) Focus groups
• A group discussion facilitated by a moderator to access memories,
feelings and perceptions about a particular focused topic
• Promotes self disclosure, debate and interesting interaction – the
whole is more than the sum of the parts!
• Seven to ten similar (related to the topic) “information rich”
participants
• Moderator keeps the discussion going, keeps everyone on track,
makes sure everyone can participate
• Provide a comfortable, permissive, non threatening environment
• Three focus groups usually provide a good result
• visual aids can be employed, TV, video, magazines, to stimulate
discussion
• Incentives can be used (pizza is a good one)
• Data collection can be through tape recording, video, notes
Focus group examples
Are focus groups a good method to use for these questions and why?
(and what kinds of methodologies do these questions come from?)
Question 1
• “Understanding the lived experience of becoming a first time mum
after the age of 40”
Question 2
• “Understanding the lived experience of alcoholism”
Question 3
• “How are new university employees at Bradford University
socialized into workplace rituals?”
Question 4
• “What are the cultural characteristics of a highly innovative
organization?”
3) In depth interviewing
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In-depth interviews - one person (but sometimes two) is interviewed at a
time. The format remains unstructured, the interview is generally conducted
by a researcher, and projective techniques may also be used.
In-depth interviews explore the nuances of what people think, feel, and
experience
Ideal for investigating personal, sensitive, or confidential information.
This type of interview involves asking informants open-ended questions,
and probing wherever necessary to obtain data deemed useful by the
researcher
Can be used used to explore conceptual issues at an early stage in the
development of a questionnaire or to complement quantitative research
Valuable for researching people with busy lifestyles who would be unlikely
to attend a focus group - e.g. senior businesspeople - also somewhat
easier to arrange!!
The disadvantage of in-depth interviews is that the respondent may be less
willing to open up than in the relaxed atmosphere of a focus group. A skilled
interviewer can overcome this, through the establishment of rapport and
trust
3) In depth interviewing (2)
• Three main types of IDI
– Informal conversational
• Typically part of ethnographic research, may be a coffee
room chat or a water cooler chat!
– Guided
• Still unstructured and free flowing but there is a guide to the
topics that the researcher wishes to cover
– Standardised
• A set of open ended questions that also allows for probing
and free answering but comes back to the set of questions
until they have all been answered – useful with multi
researcher projects
3) In depth interviewing (3)
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Truly open-ended questions cannot be answered by yes or no, do not predetermine the answers and allow room for the informants to respond in their
own terms. For example, “tell me about the last time you went clothes
shopping”, “tell me about typical work place relations at Bradford University”
Start with simple questions relating to experiences or actual behaviour or
incidents rather than jumping straight into feelings, emotions etc.
– Eg “tell me about the last time you went clothes shopping?” (responded to with
an account of not being able to find clothes that fit and going home empty
handed) THEN “how did you feel about that?”
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Probing
– "Could you say something more about that?"; "Can you give a more detailed
description of what happened?; "Do you have further examples of this?"
Alternatively, a mere nod, or “hmm," or just a pause
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Establish rapport
– Respect opinions, support feelings and responses
– Tone, expressions, gestures.
– Kvale (1996:128) ‘a good contact is established by attentive listening, with the
interviewer showing interest, understanding, and respect for what the subjects
say [a good interview] allows subjects to finish what they are saying, lets them
proceed at their own rate of thinking and speaking.’
4) Projective techniques
• A technique to use in different research encounters (i.e.
interviews or focus groups)
• Based on the projective hypothesis
– When people try to understand an ambiguous or open ended stimulus
they will subconsciously give a response which truly represents their
feelings, perceptions, thought processes and experiences
• Stimulus an be a question, a fantasy, an incomplete
sentence, a drawing/cartoon, an observed situation, a
photograph, word association, a shared construction of a
collage or simply “what do you think other people think
about x?” (otherwise known as gossip!!)
Projective techniques
• The Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique
(ZMAT)
– Based on the idea that we think in pictures and
metaphors
– We need to get at those to understand what/how
people are really experiencing phenomena
– “describe the plot of a mini documentary about how staff are
inducted into Bradford University”
– “Find 10 images in a pile of magazines that you personally
identify/identified with before and after your weight loss”
– “Describe your ideal (or fantasy) airline flight”
Projective techniques (2)
• Thematic apperception test (TAT)
– A drawing, picture or video of a particular
situation is presented to the participant and
they are encouraged to explain what they
think is “happening” – “what is going on
here?”
– OR: Ask participants to draw a cartoon or line
drawing of a particular situation
– The data generated from the discussion can
be analysed in several ways to generate
themes and models, thick description,
discourses and/or concepts
Sampling in qualitative research
• We have already talked about this, can you remember?
– What characteristics will need to be reflected in the sample
population to address the research question?
– Smaller samples
• Different sampling techniques can be used at different stages of the
qual research project
• Probability sampling is inappropriate for QUAL research – why?
– Qualitative research uses non-probability sampling as it does not aim to
produce a statistically representative sample or draw statistical
inference. Indeed, a phenomenon need only appear once in the sample.
• Purposive sampling
– The number of people interviewed is less important than the
criteria used to select them
• Theoretical sampling
– the continual sampling, collection and analysis of data to inform
the next stage of the sample design, until ‘theoretical saturation’
is achieved
Fit within overall topic
• Introduction to qualitative sampling
• Introduction to specific research methods
– You need to know the pragmatics of methods
to do any research
– In qualitative research the onus is more on
you as research instrument so even more
important that you understand specific
methods, where they came from, how they
work and have worked through examples